The word 'serenity' is not one that might immediately associated with the annual organized mayhem that is the Sibos gathering. But it is one that Eric de Nexon, Head of Strategy for Market Infrastructures at Societe Generale Securities Services, deployed almost immediately when discussing exclusively with RUNNINGSITE his reflections on the first of two major themes defining this year's event, pairing it with optimism. A second theme he identified is continuity versus disruption.

The perceived improvement in the world's most developed economies over the past year is one of the reasons behind his use of serenity and optimism. An easing in the tsunami of regulation that has engulfed the financial world for much of the past decade is another.

"The economy is definitely improving, there is no doubting that," he says. "And as far as regulation is concerned, the efforts that the world's leading financial institutions have made since the global financial crisis erupted seem to have finally satisfied the regulators." Indeed, he goes as far as to raise the intriguing prospect of the beginning of what he describes as a retreat from regulation and harmonization inspired by the looming departure of the UK from the European Union and numerous references made by President Donald Trump to the Dodd-Frank act in the United States. He leaves the impression that this would not be universally welcomed.

The 'continuity versus disruption' theme refers, almost inevitably, to the all-pervading and still-growing influence of technology in the financial world. He points in particular to blockchain, a concept of which many in the industry were barely aware three years ago but which has been thrust to the fore, along with artificial intelligence, data management et al. "The process has started to understand the challenges that the emerging technologies present," he says. "A lot of work lies ahead." This in itself contributes to the overall sense of optimism, he adds. "We now have a much better view of what we face and what we have to do as a result. We have moved from being wary of the potential threat posed by financial and regulatory technology 'disrupters' to finding ways in which we can work together for mutual benefit."

Which leads neatly to the topic of cyber security, top of everyone's to do list, be they banks, intermediaries, fintechs, infrastructure, regulators or Swift. "Cyber security has been firmly identified as a pressing issue and we are all working on developing solutions to deliver new technology to improve the client experience," says de Nexon.

Other new projects in the offing involve the European Central Bank, freed by the finalisation of the long-running T2S development and implementation, with modernisation and rationalisation of the original T2 platform, the instant payment platform TIPS (scheduled for October 2018) and the European Collateral Management System, a single platform for collateral management by central banks (currently expected by 2021 at the latest).

Already live is the first phase of Swift's gpi project to improve cross-border payments by increasing the speed, transparency and end-to-end tracking of cross-border payments. This enables corporates to receive an enhanced payments service from their banks, including faster, same-day use of funds, transparency of fees and end-to-end payments tracking.

The second phase of SWIFT will allow banks, inter alia, to stop a payment immediately, no matter where it is in the correspondent banking chain, transfer rich payment data along with the payment, including additional line-item details necessary for compliance checks, in an effort to enhance the reconciliation of a payment with multiple invoices.

For its third phase SWIFT gpi is already exploring the potential of using new technologies such as distributed ledger technology, in the cross-border payments process.

That which was disruptive two to three years ago is now absorbed into the mainstream, it would seem.

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The word 'serenity' is not one that might immediately associated with the annual organized mayhem that is the Sibos gathering. But it is one that Eric de Nexon, Head of Strategy for Market Infrastructures at Societe Generale Securities Services, deployed almost immediately when discussing exclusively with fundservices.net his reflections on the first of two major themes defining this year's event, pairing it with optimism. A second theme he identified is continuity versus disruption.

The perceived improvement in the world's most developed economies over the past year is one of the reasons behind his use of serenity and optimism. An easing in the tsunami of regulation that has engulfed the financial world for much of the past decade is another.

"The economy is definitely improving, there is no doubting that," he says. "And as far as regulation is concerned, the efforts that the world's leading financial institutions have made since the global financial crisis erupted seem to have finally satisfied the regulators." Indeed, he goes as far as to raise the intriguing prospect of the beginning of what he describes as a retreat from regulation and harmonization inspired by the looming departure of the UK from the European Union and numerous references made by President Donald Trump to the Dodd-Frank act in the United States. He leaves the impression that this would not be universally welcomed.

The 'continuity versus disruption' theme refers, almost inevitably, to the all-pervading and still-growing influence of technology in the financial world. He points in particular to blockchain, a concept of which many in the industry were barely aware three years ago but which has been thrust to the fore, along with artificial intelligence, data management et al. "The process has started to understand the challenges that the emerging technologies present," he says. "A lot of work lies ahead." This in itself contributes to the overall sense of optimism, he adds. "We now have a much better view of what we face and what we have to do as a result. We have moved from being wary of the potential threat posed by financial and regulatory technology 'disrupters' to finding ways in which we can work together for mutual benefit."

Which leads neatly to the topic of cyber security, top of everyone's to do list, be they banks, intermediaries, fintechs, infrastructure, regulators or Swift. "Cyber security has been firmly identified as a pressing issue and we are all working on developing solutions to deliver new technology to improve the client experience," says de Nexon.

Other new projects in the offing involve the European Central Bank, freed by the finalisation of the long-running T2S development and implementation, with modernisation and rationalisation of the original T2 platform, the instant payment platform TIPS (scheduled for October 2018) and the European Collateral Management System, a single platform for collateral management by central banks (currently expected by 2021 at the latest).

Already live is the first phase of Swift's gpi project to improve cross-border payments by increasing the speed, transparency and end-to-end tracking of cross-border payments. This enables corporates to receive an enhanced payments service from their banks, including faster, same-day use of funds, transparency of fees and end-to-end payments tracking.

The second phase of SWIFT will allow banks, inter alia, to stop a payment immediately, no matter where it is in the correspondent banking chain, transfer rich payment data along with the payment, including additional line-item details necessary for compliance checks, in an effort to enhance the reconciliation of a payment with multiple invoices.

For its third phase SWIFT gpi is already exploring the potential of using new technologies such as distributed ledger technology, in the cross-border payments process.

That which was disruptive two to three years ago is now absorbed into the mainstream, it would seem.